Jonathan Swift was born in 1667 in Dublin, and was the son of Protestant parents. The family he was born in was Royalist, which was to influence his thoughts and works greatly. An ordained Anglican minister, Swift was a High Church man who was an ardent supporter of his religion throughout his political life. A person who enjoyed shocking his friends with sardonic comments that would topple their accepted sentimentality, Swift often seemed rude and blunt to those who did not know him very well. However, he was not mean-natured person. He believed in being completely honest at all times and at whatever cost and hated hypocrisy or even just polite white lies. He had, early in life, imbibed such a strong hatred to hypocrisy, that he fell into the opposite extreme; and no mortal ever took more pains to display his good qualities, or appear in the best light into the world, than he did to conceal his, or even put on the semblance of their contraries..." (Nokes 179). Lord Bolingbroke had called him a "hypocrite reversed (179)," which seems to be an apt label for him. The reason Swift satirised so cleverly and cruelly was because he was greatly disturbed by how deeply flawed human nature was.